Warlordism in Comparative Perspective - MIT Press Journals

Warlordism in Comparative Perspective 63
CPC leaders from urban areas convinced Chinese peasants to rebel against unfair
local land arrangements. The second factor, again paralleling events in
Europe, was the emergence of a new transformative idea: in this case, nationalism
imported from the West and Japan, whose emphasis on a common identity
of citizens across a vast geographic space against both foreign intervention and
parochial disarray helped support the intertwined goals of anti-imperialism
and anti-warlordism.
economic change and grievance in china. China’s warlords were as
arbitrary as those of medieval Europe, and certainly their particularistic rule
and their habit of constant battle impeded long-distance trade. But China’s
merchants did not rise up to challenge warlord rule in the early twentieth century
by themselves, even though they supported the anti-warlord labor movements
of the 1920s. In part, this may have been because traditional Confucian
norms did not place merchants at the top of the social hierarchy; instead it was
village culture that received society’s greatest respect. In part, it may also have
reºected the lack of economic opportunity in China at the time of warlord rule;
there was no spike in productivity as there had been in medieval Europe. Control
of the national railroad—a crucial piece of infrastructure for the expansion
of long-distance trade—was subject to constant battles between the provinces
and the center, 90 and provincial merchant elites often made common cause
with local warlords against the state in conºicts over taxation and resource distribution.
91 The railway system and the commerce that moved along it were
also a prime target for both banditry and warlord territorial battles. 92 Only the
port towns protected by foreign commercial interests had a chance of spawning
much trade.
Labor and intellectual interests, initially supported by merchants and later
joined by peasants, led the tide against warlord rule. The dominance of several
key warlords was tangled up with the presence of foreign troops on Chinese
soil to protect the economic interests of foreign ªrms. Their brutality toward
Chinese laborers, and their unfair practices against local merchants, helped
spark initial protests in the cities.
The story begins with the May 4 Movement of 1919. The Chinese government
in Beijing, dominated by the Beiyang Army warlord faction, was poised
to sign a provision of the Versailles treaty (ending World War I) that would
have made the wartime Japanese occupation of parts of China a permanent
transfer of sovereign territory. Students in Beijing protested against this deci-
90. Sheridan, China in Disintegration, p. 39.
91. Van de Ven, “Public Finance and the Rise of Warlordism,” pp. 860–861.
92. Lary, “Violence, Fear, and Insecurity,” p. 59.